Diary

• There will come a time when the power brokers reconcile themselves to the ascent of Catherine Ashton, the high representative of the European Union many didn't want and others don't much care for. But that time is some way off. She hasn't got the experience, they say. She doesn't have the stature. Mon dieu, she isn't even that fluent in French. The first two complaints she can do nothing about. But the third she has in hand, as Baroness Ashton has apparently written to one of the grumblers, Pierre Lellouche, a junior minister in the Sarkozy government, to confirm that she will take a rapid residential course to improve her grasp of Europe's second most dominant language. It means her critics will have one less stick to beat her with. They'll find something else.

• Things are hotting up on the mayoral trail in London, where Boris Johnson rules the roost and Ken Livingstone will fight Oona King for the right to try to depose the Tory champion. Oona announced her candidacy last week. Ken began his proposed comeback on Monday. And though the end of the nomination period is some way off it seems likely, officials say, that they will be the only major candidates. For David Lammy, who had been touted as another competitor, is chairing Ken's campaign, and Alan Johnson has made it known that he would prefer a spell in opposition and perhaps another crack at government. And what of Lord Mandelson? "Too much talk again of him and dodgy businessmen," a party bigwig tells us. "Wouldn't want him." Hero to zero. What a shame.

• This does, of course, mean that as he waits for the coalition to hit choppy waters, Alan Johnson may have a little time on his hands. Time, perhaps, to fulfil an unfulfilled promise. For he may have forgotten that two years ago he visited Barts hospital in London to look at the work of its volunteers, and said that if Labour lost the election he would seek to become one. The volunteers, they tell us, remember as if it were yesterday, and thus are waiting for a call from the former home secretary. He could read to patients. Perhaps a stint on the hospital radio. Pick a day, Alan. Any day.

• Do it soon, for already there are signs of strain at the top of the governing coalition – predictably the tug of war between chancellor George Osborne and Vince Cable, the man who would be/could be chancellor. "We are locked together in a common cause" of cuts and efficiency, Vince, now business secretary, told the Today programme yesterday. "In our department, we are going to be reducing our headcount more than any other department, certainly more than the Treasury." By the autumn, his may be the only head left.

• The new politics inevitably brings new people to our attention, and we feel we need to keep an eye on Karl McCartney, the new Conservative MP for Lincoln. Combative sort, it would seem from his Twitter account. Not sure he's very nice. "Enjoyed first 'proper' day in Chamber & QS. Not enj unedifying sight & sound of displaced Lab MPs (esp Eagle sisters) in full banshee mode," was his briefing to the faithful the other day. Labour supporters he dismisses as Trolls. But then, we see, he is the man who endeared himself to workers at the local Siemens plant as they absorbed the news that hundreds were to be made redundant. "Siemens job loss announcement part of a bad day," he tweeted. "(Favourite car failed MOT disastrously)."

• Finally, we speak the same language but that may be all we really have in common with the Australians. For visitors to the International Beer Awards gala in Melbourne tell us that the participants were repeatedly being asked to drink responsibly – which is, alas, not second nature to us Brits. Visitors were also menaced with the government TV ad campaign with the slogan: "If you drink and drive you're a bloody idiot." And the message was rammed home at the end of the evening with a selection of hits by Mr Temperance himself, Dean Martin. "If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt," the balladeer of the barstool and the fairways once said. It was good advice, even then.